Sour grapes from Jose Mourinho, or another Fifa conspiracy? The former Chelsea coach has labelled the Fifa voting system for last year’s World Coach of the Year as “irregular” after he was pipped to the title by Vincente Del Bosque.

The Portuguese refused to attend the 2012 Ballon d’Or award
ceremony, claiming that he should have won the title rather than the Spaniard.
He said: “More than one person, two
or three people, phoned me to say they'd voted for me and that their vote ended
up going to someone else. So I decided not to go.

"Fifa was aware of these
irregularities, knowing they were there, but did nothing to avoid them,"
he continued.

The governing body for world
football moved quickly to deny Mourinho’s assertions, but his statements have
since been backed up by one of his former players, Goran Pandev. The
Macadonian, who won the Champions League with the current Real Madrid coach at
Inter Milan, confirmed that his vote was wrongly given to Del Bosque.

“According
to the Fifa list I voted for Vicente Del Bosque, but I voted for Mourinho. I
even called him and said I’d vote for him. Unfortunately, odd things happen at
Fifa,” he said.

The Spain coach, who was nominated
alongside Mourinho and compatriot Pep Guardiola for the award, was defiant
after hearing the comments and branded the two-time Champions League winner
“childish”. However, he insists he the claims have left him unconcerned.

“It doesn’t bother me at all. We are 48 hours from
an important game against Finland and I am not worried about anything other
than this,” said Del Bosque.

The former Madrid coach took more than a third of
the votes to win the award, compared to the 20 per cent won by his controversial
adversary.